Roles: Technical Artist
Platform: Mobile (iOS, Android, Web)
Engine: Unity
Remote Work
Company: Jam City, Inc.
Cookie Jam
Match three or more candies and cookies to clear challenging puzzles in a sweet adventure. Enjoy vibrant graphics and creative gameplay elements.
In this role, I optimized assets for mobile performance, developed engaging shaders and materials, and enhanced visual effects for an interactive experience. I set up UI for future features and developed dynamic animations for UI elements, including buttons and screen shader effects, complemented by tailored audio design. I have also been updating visual effects on the board to enhance gameplay dynamics
Roles: Design and Code
Platform: Oculus VR, SteamVR
Engine: Unity
Hybrid Working (Remote and On-Site)
Company: Tender Claws
Stranger Things VR
Play as Vecna. Become an explorer of unknown realities as you form the hive mind and tame the void. Invade minds and conjure nightmares in your quest to enact revenge on Eleven and Hawkins.
In this game, I developed and implemented a comprehensive VR tutorial system, including both 2D and 3D animations. Managed UI animations, sound effects, and the quest-log system for VR environments. Created custom playables and tracks for smooth motion capture animations and designed a particle system using object pooling for optimization.
Roles: Design and Code
Platform: Oculus VR, SteamVR
Engine: Unity
Hybrid Working (Remote and On-Site)
Company: Tender Claws
In this darkly funny action-adventure game, pilot your mech body through the chaos of a dying metaverse, rescuing abandoned avatars along the way. Each new avatar roommate brings unique tools to aid your escape back to meatspace!
In this role, I utilized design patterns in my scripts to enhance GUI tutorialization and implemented Scriptable Objects to manage essential tutorial information efficiently. I created varied and nested prefabs, allowing for flexible tutorial adjustments. I successfully launched and maintained VR games on platforms including Quest 2, Quest Pro, HTC Vive, and Valve Index, and provided ongoing post-launch support through game feature updates and bug patching. I developed flexible code and maintained game systems and tools to optimize the workflows of engineers, artists, and designers. I modified toon model lighting to smooth directional light transitions across multiple scenes, minimizing shadow and light discrepancies. Additionally, I worked on animation implementation and developed tools to help artists visualize shader changes in their animations.
Roles: Game Designer, System, and Technical Designer
Platform: Oculus VR
Engine: Unity
Team Size: 8
Remote Work
Agave VR is built around the relationship between the player and nature. The player’s primary experience goals are to feel gratitude and appreciation for the land and the agave plant. These experiences are based on the relationship between indigenous people and nature and the cultural practices of giving back to nature when taking from it. These goals are approached through a survival game experience where the player must use the land’s resources to survive and give back to the land that is providing these resources.
Juanito El Nahualito is a short exploration, and puzzle-based narrative experience focused on the coming of age of a modern Latin American teen with a unique power to influence wildlife. Throughout the adventure, he discovers that his abilities are inherited from his cultural ancestors, the Nahaules. The game uses 2D cut-scenes and voice-over interspersed with 3D game-play to provide historical information about this culture and its legends. It has an accompanying physical storybook that acts as a prequel to the game.
Team Name: Team Nahual
Website: Juanito el Nahualito
Role: Lead Designer
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
Team Size: 25
Download and play Act 2 =)
https://teamnahual.itch.io/juanito-el-nahualito
Juanito El Nahualito was an undergrad thesis project that was developed by 25 undergrad students over a school year. I was the lead designer. The idea came from wanting to honor my Dad, who passed away a year before I graduated. My Dad used to tell me stories about shapeshifters who used to be celebrated, but after the Spanish conquest, they were seen as evil beings. I also wanted to create something that showed a person of color like me.
Roles: Gameplay and Level Designer
Platform: Installation and Mobile
Engine: Unity
Team Size: 10
Cats Your Vote is a free-to-play social mobile game launching in August 2020 on the Apple and Android stores. The goal of the project - spearheaded by a core group of USC Games students and faculty - is to increase voter awareness of the 2020 U.S. election. Cats Your Vote engages voter culture by incorporating proven social game dynamics that foster participatory culture unique to Millennials and Generation Z.
Cats Your Vote encourages collective action; it explores short-sighted vs. far-sighted decision making, and it allows players to live with the results, and possibly voter regret. The game does not aim to make a moral argument for virtual civic duty but instead invites players to engage in ownership, connection, insight, and influence over the game, all of which are part of the underlying cultural issues affecting voter turnout in young Americans today.
Hesiquio Mendez Alejo was in charge of the level design and design process of the game.
Sadie’s Tail is an interactive mobile narrative game that follows the life of a dog. You play as Sadie the dog, making decisions about what shoe to chew and which humans to interact with. Sadie’s Tail is a story about unconditional love and learning that time doesn’t rupture all connections.
Roles: Designer, Engineer
Platform: Mobile
Engine: Unity
Team Size: 2
Team Name: JapanGotSuhy
Team Members:
Eisaku Imura – Design, Programming
Hesiquio Mendez –Design, Game Art, Hardware
Encourage your warrior to fight well and intimidate your adversary by playing the Taiko or Shakuhachi better than your opponent.In this game, you play the Taiko, and Shakuhachi in time for your warrior to win the battle. Warriors will take turns playing a series of beats in the form of tomoe symbols to deal damage to the opposing warrior.
If a warrior plays all the notes right, the player will gain a morale boost and deal damage based on how much morale they currently have.On the other hand, if the player misses a note or a couple of notes, the player will lose morale based on how much they missed. You deal damage based on the newly decreased morale.
The player with the least damage by the end of the song wins.
The inspiration for this game came from traditional Japanese culture.
The gameplay or setting came from the Total War: sumiShogun two intro cinematic where two master warriors duel to the death.Shogun 2 Intro Cinematic. Sumi-e paintings inspired the art style.
Process: https://hesimendeza.tumblr.com/
